


Better Than Nothing

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [7]
Category: Dollhouse, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard, during The Last Man when he realized everyone he knew and loved was dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Than Nothing

John knew as soon as he emerged on the other side of the gate that something was wrong. It wasn't the complete dearth of people in the gate room that tipped him off first - it was Atlantis herself. He expected the familiar caress of her against his mind, but instead all he got was a low, distant humming, like she was asleep. She shouldn't be asleep. She only went to sleep when the Imperator shut her down, as the last Imperator had done ten thousand years ago before the Ancients fled to the Milky Way Galaxy.  
  
Everything outside the window was wrong. The ocean was gone, replaced with a lifeless desert. The sky was the wrong color. The physicist in the back of his mind began to panic. John shut him down. Now was not the time. Atlantis was in trouble. John needed to be in complete control. He did what any soldier would do - he radioed for help.  
  
When the response was static, the other imprints stirred.  
  
No. He had this under control.  
  
He radioed again, and while he did so he checked over the control consoles, but they were lifeless. Atlantis didn't respond to his mental prods either. She was comatose.  
  
John radioed again. And then, blessedly, Rodney answered. Perfect. As long as Rodney was here, everything would be fine. Rodney's rapid-fire delivery was comforting when often it had been annoying. John answered his questions and headed for the holo room. Why was Rodney hiding in the holo room?  
  
And then Rodney told him the truth. He'd traveled forty-eight thousand years into the future. Everyone he knew and everyone he loved was dead. He was alone, not just in the city, but possibly in the entire galaxy, if not the universe. The rest of Rodney's words washed over him - solar flare, stasis pod, Teyla - and the law clerk with the eidetic memory absorbed them. But John froze inside.  
  
All of them. Teyla. Ronon. Rodney himself - this thing before him was a hologram, a ghost without a shell, a farcical copy - was gone. Lorne. Keller. Carter.  
  
He was alone. Totally and utterly alone.  
  
Immediately the imprints swarmed him, offering comfort and support. They were all here for him. They would help him get home. Between them, they could do anything (they really could).  
  
One of the other imprints, the wannabe actor, kept up witty banter with Rodney about how traveling forty-eight thousand years into the future in ten seconds was not cool. The physicist listened to Rodney's solution and approved. There might even be a way to reroute systems in Atlantis to make sure the stasis pod had more than enough capacity to sustain him for eight centuries. Between Rodney and the physicist, they could do it.  
  
No. This was the unbearable nightmare John had always dreaded, being trapped alone with just the imprints for company, forever. Having the imprints around to help him escape was one thing, but being without Ronon's rough-housing or Teyla's swift banto attacks or even Rodney's awkward pats on the shoulder (Rodney's whispers) -  
  
John pushed them side. The physicist was based on Rodney anyway. Why use the imprint when he could have the real thing?  
  
(The hologram wasn't the real thing.)  
  
(Foxtrot John Sheppard wasn't the real thing either.)  
  
(The hologram was better than nothing.)  
  
John gazed at the familiar face of the hologram lined with unfamiliar years, years he'd missed out on. Did Rodney know about the imprints? Had he found out, or had John told him? (No, John couldn't have told him, John had been thrown into the future before he had the chance, before he was brave enough.)  
  
"Okay, Rodney," John said. "Let's do it."


End file.
